Where in the World are Barack Obama’s Bundlers, A Union Ally to Retire and More in Capital Eye Opener: July 18

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

OBAMA’S MONEYMEN: President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign released the names of 244 individuals Friday who have steered tens of millions of dollars into his campaign coffers as bundlers. Collectively, these individuals bundled at least $34.95 million on behalf of Obama and the Democratic National Committee. An exact figure is not known, since the campaign only provided broad ranges of how much money each bundler had raised.

About a quarter of this money was raised by Californians. Fifty-six of Obama’s bundlers, who raised at least $8.9 million, were from California. Thirty-five New Yorkers, meanwhile, raised a minimum of $4.9 million. And 24 residents of the battle ground state of Florida bundled a minimum of $3.55 million.

The following graphic plots these bundlers’ location on a map of the United States, plus the United Kingdom, where one Obama bundler hails from. Click on each point to see the bundlers’ names, locations and minimum amount raised.

And the following chart provides the minimum amount bundled — and the number of individual bundlers in each location — for these elite fund-raisers for Obama’s re-election.

Number of Bundlers

Min. Amount Bundled

California

56*

$8,900,000

New York

35*

$4,900,000

Florida

24*

$3,550,000

Massachusetts

13*

$2,550,000

Texas

13

$2,150,000

New Jersey

7*

$1,800,000

DC

11

$1,700,000

Illinois

17*

$1,600,000

Pennsylvania

8*

$1,300,000

Maryland

11

$1,250,000

Georgia

9

$850,000

Vermont

3*

$800,000

Puerto Rico

3

$750,000

Missouri

3

$350,000

Connecticut

4*

$300,000

Tennessee

3

$300,000

Virginia

3*

$250,000

Washington

3

$250,000

Colorado

3

$200,000

Maine

2

$200,000

North Carolina

2

$200,000

Ohio

1

$200,000

Michigan

2*

$150,000

Wisconsin

3

$150,000

Oregon

1

$100,000

Alabama

1

$50,000

Minnesota

1

$50,000

New Hampshire

1

$50,000

United Kingdom

1

$50,000

Total

244

$34,950,000

*Note: Some bundlers disclosed by the Obama campaign represented pairs of individuals who raised money on the president’s behalf. The figures shown here are the number of “bundling units.” The actual number of individuals is higher, but pairs — such as married couples or business partners — are only counted once in this chart, not twice.

KILDEE TO RETIRE FROM CONGRESS: Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), who was first elected to Congress in 1976, announced Friday that he will not seek re-election after the end of the 112th Congress next year. Kildee currently sits on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Natural Resources Committee, where he is the second highest ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on Indian and Alaskan Native Affairs.

During the 2010 election cycle, Kildee raised $622,560 and spent $1.2 million on his re-election bid. He ended the year with $12,670 cash on hand. Nearly 30 percent of all the money he raised came from political action committees associated with labor unions, who were his top financial backers. According to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, labor PACs donated $178,950 to his campaign in 2009 and 2010. Public sector union PACs accounted for $59,250 of this sum, while building trade unions accounted for $49,500.

During the 2010 election cycle, Kildee was also the No. 2 top beneficiary among all House members of money from Indian gaming interests, which donated $81,500 to his campaign. That sum also ranked him as the No. 4 top beneficiary of money from these interests among all members of both chambers of Congress.

Furthermore, according to the Center’s research, Kildee was among the poorer members of Congress. His net worth was estimated to be $296,500 in 2009 — the most recent year for which data is available. That ranked him as the 300th richest member of the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives.

WHEN THE DEAD STILL GIVE: Federal campaign finance records show that on May 11, the Democratic National Committee received a contribution in the amount of $30,400 from a Gladis B. Innerst of San Diego, Calif. In most respects, the transaction was routine — the DNC frequently receives large donations — but the employer and occupation information listed for Innerst was not something familiar like “homemaker,” “teacher,” “physician,” or “lawyer.” Rather, Center for Responsive Politics researcher Carolyn Sharpe discovered the employer and occupation fields both said “deceased.” Indeed, Innerst had passed away four years earlier, in May 2007.

But death hadn’t stopped Innerst from legally making an impact in federal politics. Starting in 2008, she has donated the legal maximum, or close to it, to the DNC. That’s a total of $119,700 over the course of four years, according to the Center’s research.

“Deceased donors leave money bequests in their wills and can contribute through estates or trusts,” a DNC official told OpenSecrets Blog. “The funds are administered and sent by a trustee. This is the case for Ms. Innerst.”

Such contributions are legal under federal rules, so long as the trust is not controlled by someone directly affiliated with the political committee that stands to benefit from the donations, as OpenSecrets Blog noted earlier this year while uncovering how a dead woman’s name erroneously appeared in campaign finance reports for the Tea Party Express’ PAC.

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